FRUIT PACKING FACILITIES

Thoughts on Appraisal Issues and Methodology

FRUIT MARKETTremendous consolidation on the retail side

1. Traditional broker markets/networks have seen significantly reduced

2. Fewer buyers

3. Retailers want direct relationships with commodity sales desks

4. Desire to control year-round produce demand

5. Marketplace clout > delegation of promotional support, variety selection and inventory control

Response?1. Consolidations and mergers within the fruit growing and packing community

2. Required to meet the demands of the Kroegers, Safeways, Costcos, and other large retailers

3. Value added services (5 above)

4. Walmart (2009 decision) – Manage their own inventory in an attempt to reduce fruit prices

Result?1. 5 of the largest sales desks in the state of Washington reportedly now control 60% of apple sales by

volume

2. It is anticipated that this consolidation will continue.

COMPONENTSRefrigerated Storage

– Controlled AtmosphereGenerally Concrete Tilt1. Sandwich panel2. Single concrete panel w/ interior urethane coating3. Old style – concrete wall, interior wood framed walls with fiberglass insulation4. Sealed wall joints

Style1. Exterior room loading or interior hallway2. Interior equipment mezzanine3. Roof top “dog house” equipment housing4. Cost – depends on room size, building style, CA equipment ($160 to $200+/bin) ($80/$85 per

SF to $100-$110 per SF)

Equipment1. Atmosphere maintenance

1. Nitrogen injection (On-site nitrogen tanks), (Nitrogen generators)2. Carbon DiOxide (Scrubber or Lime)3. Oxygen, Ammonia, and Carbon monitoring

2. Refrigeration1. Generally ammonia based (some Freon-being phased out, and food grade Glycol)2. Compressors (reciprocating and screw)3. Condensers4. Evaporators5. Monitoring equipment

CA Designs

The picture to the left is an exterior room entrance CA building with roof top “dog-houses” containing the ammonia surge vessels and the necessary piping connections to the room evaporators – one dog house per two rooms.

The picture on the right is an exterior room entrance CA with an interior mezzanine hallway containing all of the refrigeration piping and ammonia surge vessels.

In both pictures note the piping bridge that carries the defrost water, ammonia refrigerant, and nitrogen piping from the equipment room to the individual CA rooms.

CA Interiors

To the left is the interior of a roof top “dog-house” style structure. Note the yellow pipe on the left. This as ammonia piping from the dog house above the evaporator. The green piping is for defrost water.

On the right is the interior of an internal mezzanine style building. Note the hallway projection at the upper part of the room behind the evaporator. The other difference in this picture is the blue piping. The refrigeration system in this CA is glycol based. As seen the refrigerant piping is coming through the wall out of the mezzanine area. Also note the viewing window to the left of the evaporator.

Interior Mezzanine Hallway

Typical view of an interior mezzanine hallway. Yellow piping – low pressure ammonia (return), orange piping – high pressure ammonia liquid (delivery), green piping – defrost water to rooms. Also not the yellow surge vessels (balance system for evaporators). The white PVC piping below the yellow surge vessel is a “burp tube” to allow excess room pressure to be released from the room without compromising the room atmosphere. The other piping seen in the hallway is a combination of electrical, nitrogen, and room atmosphere monitoring equipment.

Interior Room Entrance CA

The photo to the left shows the exterior of a CA with in internal refrigerated hallway that can be used as common cold storage as well as an unloading area for the CA rooms that are located on each side of the hallway. This is a more typical design in the northern portion of Washington (Wenatchee and north) due to weather and topographical considerations. An internal hallway design building typically takes a smaller foot print, but is more expensive to build.

To the right is a photo of the internal hallway. Note CA room doors on each side of the hall. Also note the equipment mezzanine circling the hallway above the CA room doors.

CA Equipment

Upper left – equipment room with a roof top mounted condenser

Above – ammonia compressors, high pressure receiver (orange), low pressure accumulator (yellow)

Left – water tank used for room evaporator defrost, condenser (to cool hot high-pressure ammonia from the compressors), and to cool the compressor units.

CA Atmosphere Equipment

Left – Nitrogen generator system. What you see here is the prism system that monitors the rooms to determine the degree to which nitrogen gas needs to be injected into each individual room. There is a compressor located behind this unit as well as a high pressure air tank to supply the prism system with the air pressure required to separate the oxygen and nitrogen molecules.

Right – Carbon scrubber. Atmosphere from the rooms is pulled through this system and the carbon that has been expired from the stored fruit is separated from the atmosphere and stored in the orange tank. The carbon free atmosphere is then returned to the room. The carbon stored in the orange tank in periodically purged into the atmosphere outside of the building.

– Regular Cold StorageGenerally Concrete Tilt1. Sandwich panel

2. Single concrete panel (may be urethane coated)

3. Old style – concrete wall, interior wood framed walls with fiberglass

4. Open clear span or steel post supported roof

5. Bin storage configured ( receiving)

6. Packed fruit storage - Pallet storage configured (either stacked or on pallet racking)

Cost1. $45/$50 per SF - $70 per SF

2. Racking systems - $20 to $30 per square foot of racked area depending on configuration

3. Shipping cold storage – to $100+/sf including racking, shipping dock equipment, palletizing equipment

Equipment1. Refrigeration

1. Generally ammonia based (some Freon-being phased out, and food grade Glycol)

2. Compressors (reciprocating and screw)

3. Condensers

4. Evaporators

5. Monitoring equipment

Regular Cold Storage

Left - Typical interior view of a regular cold storage building. This is a field run storage unit where bins of fruit are kept after removing from CA and prior to run across the packing line.

Right – Typical interior view of a common cold storage room being used to hold packed fruit prior to shipping. The fruit has been palletized and the pallets stacked. Inventory control is slightly more difficult to manage with this type of packed fruit storage as pallets must sometimes be shifted is they have not been stacked in proper shipping order.

In both photos note the open ceiling joist typical of a non-sealed cold storage room as opposed to a sealed CA room.

Racked Storage/Shipping

Upper left – racking (3 pallets high) in a packed fruit storage. These are “push back racks allowing pallets to roll forward as the front pallet is removed.

Above – load consolidation area. The shipping door is to the right of this picture, racking behind the photographer.

Exterior of the packing fruit storage showing the open shipping dock.

Refrigerated Shipping Dock

Upper left – racked packed fruit cold storage showing door leading to the refrigerated shipping dock.

Above – Refrigerated shipping dock, load consolidation area to the left, dock doors to the right.

Left – Truck well and shipping dock doors. No compromise of the cold chain in this system as the fruit moves from the refrigerated dock right into a refrigerated truck.

PACKING WAREHOUSEGeneral Construction

– Either concrete tilt or steel frame– Free Span construction or steel roof supports– Some trench draining in the floor– Suspended F/A or radiant heating

Components– Office– Employee lunchroom, restrooms– Open packing area– Refrigerated segregation and shipping area– Shook storage

Steel Packing Warehouse

Typical steel frame packing house interior and exterior views.

Concrete Tilt Packing Warehouse

Typical exterior views of the construction of a concrete tilt packing warehouse.

Pre-Size Packing LineEquipment

– Pre-size lineBin dump/returnFlumeEmpty bin wash and transfer chainsWash, brush sectionInspection tablesSingulator and color sorter, weight sizer/dimensional sizing, infra-red defect sortingSorter drop section with cross belts to accumulation lanesAccumulation lanes with full lane sensorsVacuum bin fillersTag printing and bin tagging capabilityFull bin accumulation lanesFull carton conveyor configuration

– Associated tray fill or bagging linesBin dump/returnFlumeWash/brush sectionDryer (air fans)Wax section w/additional brushesHeated dryerInspection tablesSingulator, limited scope sizer/sorter Sorter drop section with cross beltsTray de-nestersAutomatic tray fillers (sometimes utilize round hand packing tables)Automatic baggersCarton erectors, empty carton conveyorsFull carton conveyor configurationCarton stampers, check-weighCarton pad inserters, carton closers/tapers, glue spittersFull box accumulation lanesEither hand palletizing, top-down automatic palletizers, or robotic palletizers

Receiving

Left - Full bin lanes and empty bin return lanes.

Right – Full bin conveying system to the packing line.

Bin Dumping

Left - Stainless steel bin dumping tank and stainless steel flume.

Right – After being dumped, washed bins are conveyed to the automatic bin fillers for fruit that has been sorted and graded.

Sorting/Grading

Left – apples are floated to the inspection tables via the stainless steel flume on the right. After inspection the apples are transported via the stainless steel flume on the left to the grading equipment.

Right – apples being color and weight/dimension sorted. The line on the left also has lazer technology to determine internal quality if needed.

Bin Filling

Upper left – Graded fruit accumulation lanes. Same size and grade fruit accumulates to a full bin load.

Once a full bin is ready in a lane, that lane is “called” to the vacuum bin fillers and the fruit is place back into an empty washed bin.

The bin filler (right) releases the bin, the bin is tagged with the variety, size and grade and the placed in cold storage (not CA) until taken to be packed on the associated tray fill or bagging line.

Commit To Pack Packing LineEquipment– Commit-to-pack line

Bin dump/return

Flume

Wash/brush section

Dryer (air fans)

Wax section w/additional brushes

Heated dryer

Inspection tables

Singulator and color sorter, weight sizer/dimensional sizing, infra-red defect sorting

Sorter drop section with cross belts

Tray de-nesters

Automatic tray fillers (sometimes utilize round hand packing tables)

Automatic baggers

Carton erectors, empty carton conveyors

Full carton conveyor configuration

Carton stampers, check-weigh

Carton pad inserters, carton closers/tapers, glue spitters

Full box accumulation lanes

Either hand palletizing, top-down automatic palletizers, or robotic palletizers

Fruit Delivery System

Left - Bin destacker (right), empty bin return and restacker (right). Behind the destacker is the stainless steel dump tank.

Right – stainless steel flume (heated water) helps remove field debris from the fruit/

Dewatering elevator to the upper right of the photo.

Fruit Washing

Left – pre-inspection table to the left of the photo followed by the wash/brush section. The hooded washer is shown with the vent stack through the ceiling.

Right – looking back at the hooded washer unit with the continuation of the brush bed and air fans to remove water from the washed fruit.

Wax and Dry

Left – Continuation of brush bed with wax unit to apply fruit wax to the apples prior to entry into the enclosed, heated drier used to set the wax finish on the fruit.

Right – following the wax process the fruit is passed across inspection tables to be visually inspected. Obvious defective fruit is removed and sent to the cull bins.

Grading Equipment

Upper left – singulator (weight) and color sorting equipment (may have dimensional sizing capability also.

Above – Sticker machines

Left – Continuation of sorting line. Sized/graded apples are designated as to what belt they drop onto to be packed into cartons or bagged.

Packing

Left – Automatic tray de-nesters. Trays pass underneath the sorting equipment to the other side of the line where apples are placed onto the trays to be placed in to boxes according to size and grade.

Right – Workers align the apples in their trays and place trays into cartons, then place the cartons on the full carton conveyor line.

Carton Conveying

Upper left – Empty carton carousel from the box makers to the packing line.

Above – Full box conveyor with pad inserter, check weigh (checks box weight), and box closer/taper.

Left – continuation of full box conveyor through the glue spitter (keeps boxes together in the pallets), and continuing into the segregation area.

Segregation/Palletizing

The above is an automatic palletizing system. On the left are the box accumulation lanes. Boxes are scanned and then sent down a designated lane with all of the boxes on that lane being the same size and grade. When a lane accumulates a full pallet a lazer is triggered that it is full.

On the right is a robotic palletizer. When a lane is full the palletizer calls for the release of that lane. The robot will then fill the pallet and release the full pallet to the forklift area. The robot will alter the stacking of the boxes to tie the pallet together. There are two pallet positions in the robot area so that when one pallet is near completion the nest full accumulation lane will be called.

Segregation/Palletizing

This is another example of an automatic palletizing system. To the left are a series of accumulation lanes similar to the last example.

To the right is an automatic top-down palletizer. Full lanes are called and the boxes are arranged on a pallet level. The level of those boxes then is lowered on level and the palletizer forms the next pallet level. The process is repeated until the pallet is formed, the pallet is released to the forklift area, and the process starts again with a new pallet.

Required InformationProduct Flow

– Packing CapacityBins per day – Single or Double Shift

Annual packing history, minimum 5 years if possible

– Packing Operation Pinch PointsReceiving

Packing

Shipping

Revenue and Expenses– Packing Charges– Expenses Per Bin– Marginal Revenue Per Bin

Break-even analysis

– Estimated Net Income Per Bin – The warehouse should have a good feel for this number– If you have good industry information, direct capitalization should be able to be completed, if not you may

need to do some sort of a built-up rate– Ask what the warehouse has returned as a “cash-on-cash” basis

Waste Water Flow– Required Permits (Waste and Fresh Water)– Self Contained Site or Municipal Disposal

Property Comparisons– Challenges

Property composition

Age and style of buildings/equipment

– Comparison on a component basis?Sum of the parts may not equal the whole

Accounting for functional obsolescence and extra-ordinary depreciation

– What is the Unit of Comparison?$/SF of Building?

$/Bin of Storage (CA and Cold Storage)– How balanced is the facility (Storage vs packing capacity)

$/Bin of Packing Capacity?

Can You Use a Multiplier?– Does looking at the balance of a facility make sense? Price/verified packing history, and comparing the balance of a facility

(storage vs. packing capacity) and comparing the resulting “multipliers”?

QUESTIONS / THOUGHTS